Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

Films must all have the same structure. All of this to guarantee box office bonanza, which of course it never does, but that's another discussion entirely.

I am the last person who has any judgement about any kind of cinema, least of all commercial cinema because I am a product of commercial cinema.

Kabir Khan is that rare director who manages to merge Bollywood formula with a good story.

Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

I think the bigger the movie is, the harder it is to maintain the idea of an auteur. You're servicing something beyond just your own vision. Whenever there's a lot of money on the line, it is your responsibility to make sure that you're doing your best to have people not lose their money and to actually win by betting on it.

I'm not averse to being in big commercial films.

I see lots of cycles, for sure. There's the whole post-Star Wars era, but I don't think it's the whole story.

Because I was in the business of translating the 'X-Men' from the very successful comics, and taking the most popular book of the 20th century in 'The Lord of the Rings,' and making it into three movies, I hope people realize I wouldn't get involved in anything I didn't think was really going to be worth their while.

It's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.

None of the films I've done was designed for a mass audience, except for 'Indiana Jones.' Nobody in their right mind thought 'American Graffiti' or 'Star Wars' would work.

I really love Hitchcock; I think he was a complete genius, to me one of the best directors. Such a sense of how to put things together.

I'm not a huge Steven Spielberg nerd, but I know about him and I know of his work.

The only person who can, with impunity, make the movie he wants to make, has got to be Steven Spielberg.

I really want to meet and work with JJ Abrams. Everyone talks about what a nice director he is, and he has kids and stuff, so he sounds really awesome, not to mention he makes awesome movies.

I think my films kind of walk this line that I'm proud of, that they feel sort of like films of my youth, which were far more commercial.

I believe that there's good content or bad content. You see interviews when somebody interviews a director of a movie that didn't perform well in the box office, and he says, 'The audience didn't understand my movie.' If people didn't go to buy the ticket, then you did the wrong movie.

Steven Spielberg was a huge part of my childhood, like everyone's, I guess.

Studio execs were like, ''Lord of the Rings!' People want to see sword-and-dragon-type things!' No, people just want to see great stories. Hollywood always takes the wrong lesson from successes.

Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.

Good films will run, and people will watch it irrespective of whether it is suspense or a comedy.

It is good that people are experimenting with cinema. They are trying to do serious and soulful cinema but such films don't stay in theatres for over a week. People ultimately go and watch Salman, Shah Rukh and Amir Khan films.

I'm not very particular about the commercial angle in my films, but entertainment is very important.

Let me be very frank. I make films keeping within the mainstream and my cinema is popular cinema. I love it this way.

Obviously 'Pete's Dragon' is more commercial than 'A Ghost Story,' but when making them, I'm just trying to tell a story that matters to me, that ultimately would satisfy me as a moviegoer. Because watching movies is my favorite thing to do. I watch a lot of them.

Every filmmaker wants to get their audience talking.